Dominus

by Steven Saylor

  Now it appeared that a mob was about to do their worst to some of the wretched fools. Mob violence was never a good thing. As a senator, Titus felt an obligation to rein in their fury.

  He ascended the steps of a nearby temple and shouted until he had their attention. There were at least some people in the crowd who respected the sight of a senatorial toga.

  “Citizens!” he shouted. “You must stop this disorderly behavior at once! We are Romans. Do we murder fellow citizens right here in the Forum, without a trial? Let their cases be heard by a proper magistrate, and proper penalties carried out—by the state, not by a mob. Instead of perpetrating violence, get yourselves to the temples of the gods and beg them for their help in our moment of greatest need!”

  Amid a great deal of muttering, most in the mob seemed to be swayed by his words, until one of the Christians spoke up. “We are not to blame for Rome’s miseries! Those who are not Christians are responsible, because the gods you worship are not gods at all, but evil spirits, nothing more than demons.”

  Someone spoke back—and with a groan, Titus realized that it was his own son. “How dare you?” shouted Gnaeus. “Jupiter, Apollo, Venus—evil spirits? What foul blasphemers you Christians are! Can you never keep your mouths shut? No wonder the gods punish us! I lost my wife and my seven-year-old son to the plague. My sister lost her husband and children. Our generation is destroyed. And who is to blame? You!”

  “No, you are to blame!” answered another of the Christians, with a smirk on his face. While most of the trapped Christians looked terrified, this man seemed completely unfrightened. Indeed, he seemed to be enjoying himself. “And the proof that you follow false gods? The fate of your wicked emperor, Valerian! For persecuting us Christians, he was punished by the wrath of the one true god, who brought him low, humbled him, stripped him of all his earthly pride, and reduced the emperor of Rome to a cowering slave. Now the same fate has come to the sinful city of Rome! Using the barbarians as his tool, the one god will have his vengeance! You will all be killed horribly, or else raped and carried off as slaves—”

  He was silenced by the infuriated mob, which now threw off all restraint. The people set about murdering the Christians, using clubs or knives or their bare hands. A small corner of the Forum looked like a butcher’s shop, with blood and gore everywhere.

  With a shudder, Titus grabbed Gnaeus by the arm and headed away from the chaos as quickly as he could, hurrying toward the Senate House.

  Like any pious Roman, he sympathized with the mob’s anger and his son’s bitterness, but he also felt a cold chill, because there was a member of his own household who was a Christian, or at least claimed to be. Titus could hardly bear to think of it: his own wife called herself a Christian! Gnaeus had lost his wife to the plague, but Titus felt that he had lost Clodia as well, not to plague but to the pestilence called Christianity. Of all the tragedies that had beset him and his family in recent years, he sometimes thought this was the worst, and certainly the most shameful. He had so far managed to shield Clodia from the judgment of the law, but it had not been easy.

  At last they reached the Senate House. While Titus entered, Gnaeus and the slaves stayed outside on the steps, along with the retinues of the other senators already inside.

  Before the Altar of Victory, Titus paused to say a quick prayer. Then he braced himself to join the raucous session already in progress.

  The emergency could not have been direr. An army of barbarians had suddenly appeared north of the city—some said they were Scythians, others said they were Juthungi—and Rome had no army to defend itself. Nor did it even have defensive walls. Many lifetimes ago the city had spread beyond its ancient walls, and even those had fallen into disrepair. Who would ever have imagined that Rome, at the very heart of the empire, would need walls?

  Messengers had been sent to the emperor Gallienus, but he was hundreds of miles away, beyond the Alps, fighting yet more barbarians along the German frontier. Somehow this band, reported to be particularly bloodthirsty, had slipped past all the legions. Some rumors claimed they had arrived in Italy by boat. Hurrying past other cities they might have plundered, they headed for Rome, like a dagger thrusting toward the heart of the civilized world.

  Barbarians had managed to penetrate to Italy a handful of times since the days of the Divine Marcus, each time giving the people of Rome a scare, but none had ever actually managed to reach the city. Totally unprepared for such a threat, the Roman populace was in a panic. So were the senators.

  Disorder reigned in the chamber as many senators demanded to be heard. As he had with the mob in the Forum, Titus felt obliged to impose order. Since his elevation to the Senate he had become an excellent and effective orator; both Valerian and Gallienus had called on him to write and deliver speeches. Titus was not a military man, and had not risen to high magistracies like the consulship, but he had spent his life studying the great men of the past, frequently inventing speeches for them; thinking up appropriate words to put in the mouths of dead generals and kings was part of the historian’s craft. Titus had simply to imagine himself in their place, and the right words came easily to him.

  He also had a very loud voice. Shouting repeatedly for silence, he at last gained the attention of the chamber.

  “Senators! We can expect no help from the emperor. He and all his troops are too far away. We must rely upon ourselves, and ourselves alone.”

  There was renewed shouting, but once again Titus managed to quiet the chamber.

  “Senators! Let me remind you of the last time barbarians attacked Rome, when Gauls sacked the city—hundreds of years ago, in the early days of the Republic. On that legendary occasion a handful of Romans retreated to the top of the Capitoline Hill and never surrendered. One night, the barbarians scaled the cliff and would have killed them all in a surprise attack, but the honking of Juno’s sacred geese alerted the Romans. Among the recorded names of those brave Romans atop the Capitoline was a Vestal called Pinaria—a distant cousin of myself, I have no doubt—”

  “Or maybe your direct ancestor? Perhaps this Vestal Pinaria experienced a virgin birth—like the mother of the Christians’ man-god!”

  Titus saw who made the quip and was not surprised. Senator Titus Messius Extricatus had long been his political adversary. And who but Extricatus would make a joke in such poor taste—not just picturing a pregnant Vestal, but equating her to a Christian in the same breath! Nevertheless, Extricatus got some laughs from the assembly, though these were drowned by a chorus of boos.

  Titus ignored the distraction. “Senators! Are we worthy of our ancestors? Are we worthy to become the stuff of legend?”

  “But how?” demanded Extricatus. “There is not a single capable general among us—every competent commander is either fighting at the frontiers, or off in the hinterlands stamping out insurrections. There are not even any Praetorian Guards in the city anymore, thanks to some emperor or other who disbanded them. We have no one to lead us. No one! And there is no one to be led. We have no army.”

  “Then we must lead ourselves!” cried Titus. “We must arm ourselves with whatever weapons we can find, and round up every able-bodied citizen, beginning with the war veterans among us, but also the old and the young, and even gladiators and slaves—”

  “Why not women, while you’re at it?” said Extricatus.

  “Why not, if they’re willing to fight?”

  “Or perhaps those suffering from the plague?” Extricatus jeered. “The dying in the city outnumber the living. They would at least fill the ranks!”

  “You scoff and mock, Senator Extricatus, as is your habit, even at this dreadful moment, but I say that anyone who can pick up a weapon should join us! We must immediately arm the best force we can muster, and then march out to meet this loathsome horde of barbarians, and either kill them all, to the last man, or be killed ourselves. And before we go about this honorable task, we must ask the blessing of our ancestors, and of all the gods, foremost among them Jupi
ter Highest and Best, and we must all say a prayer before the Altar of Victory. She has never abandoned us, nor has Father Jupiter. The Senate of Rome has existed for more than a thousand years, and I for one believe it will exist for a thousand more. But if that is to happen, we must stand by the gods, and pray that they will stand by us.”

  The assembly gave him a loud, prolonged ovation. When the noise died down, Titus called on the senators he knew best and set about organizing them.

  * * *

  That night, from the roof of a tall building, Titus and Gnaeus peered at the campfires of the barbarians on the far side of the Tiber, in the open fields just across the Milvian Bridge.

  The horde had evidently come marching down the broad and well-kept Flaminian Way. The roads of Rome were one of the empire’s greatest achievements. For centuries, Roman roads had been used not just for commerce, but by countless Roman armies marching forth to conquest. Now an enemy had arrived using one of the oldest and most legendary of all Roman roads, using a tool of conquest against the city itself.

  That the barbarians had not already crossed the Milvian Bridge was something of a puzzle. Had they done so immediately upon arriving, they easily could have rampaged through the city, unopposed, ransacking as they pleased. Perhaps they were weary from their journey and needed rest, or perhaps, unused to cities, they were awed by the sheer size of Rome. Perhaps they suspected that an ambush awaited them once they crossed the bridge, imagining, as any reasonable mortal would, that Rome must surely have soldiers to defend it.

  From the number of campfires spread across the wide plain, the horde appeared to be enormous. Titus could hear the banging of drums and snatches of a barbaric war chant.

  “What are we going to do, Father?” asked Gnaeus. “There are so many of them! Do you really think we have a chance of holding them off?”

  “Hold them off? We must do more than that, son. We must kill them all, or at least enough of them so that the others will make a quick retreat.”

  Gnaeus frowned. “If they take the city, what will they do? Will they burn it? Will they murder us all? Enslave us? I never thought I should be grateful that my wife and my son are already dead…”

  “Don’t talk like that, son! What if someone overheard you? We must keep our spirits up. Think of the ancestors who wore the fascinum before you.”

  Gnaeus touched the talisman he had been privileged to wear for the last ten years. He knew the family lore. Marcus Aurelius himself considered it a powerful amulet and sure protection against plague. It might have protected Gnaeus, but it had not saved his wife, Camilla, or Aulus, the son they had named after his grandfather. Gnaeus had no heir to pass it on to. “Think of the ancestors? They’re all dead, as dead as my wife and son. If only the dead could save us!”

  Titus raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps they can.”

  “What do you mean, Father?”

  “If not the dead, then the dying. I was struck by something Messius Extricatus said—probably the only useful thing that braying ass has ever uttered in the Senate House. I do have a plan…”

  “And what is that?”

  Titus shook his head. “It will probably come to naught. But until then, we must wait and hope, and pray to all the gods—even the god of the Christians.”

  Gnaeus was puzzled by a statement so out of character for his father. “Christians? What are you up to, Father?”

  “Call it a secret mission.”

  “I’ll join you, then!”

  “No, for this mission, you would not be suitable.”

  “Father, I insist—”

  “No, son, stay here with the others on the front line and keep watch. I’ll rejoin you at first light. Now I’m off to see your mother. I’ll give her your love.”

  * * *

  “Wife, I need your help.”

  “Truly?” The look on Clodia’s face reminded him of Gnaeus’s puzzled expression. Mother and son looked much alike. Titus himself suddenly felt confused, torn between his enduring love for his wife and his disdain, even disgust, for the perverse nonsense she called a religion.

  They were alone in their bedroom in the House of the Beaks. Usually this would have been a quiet hour, but from outside came noises of constant bustle and movement in the streets. No one in Rome slept. Almost every house was lit with lamps. Some citizens were barricading their homes. Others were loading up carts and fleeing south on the Appian Way.

  Titus, so proud of his eloquence, did not know how to begin; the subject was so distasteful. “Clodia, you know I can’t understand the choice you’ve made, or claim to have made—this business of a bloody Jew on a cross—no, that is not what I want to say. The gods work in mysterious ways—even your crucified god, perhaps…”

  Clodia was unfazed. “What is it you’re trying to say, husband? Yes, I’m a Christian. You know that. We’ve had this conversation many times.”

  Their daughter Pinaria suddenly barged into the room. At twenty-six, two years younger than Gnaeus, she already wore widow’s black, thanks to the plague. There was a manic glint in her eyes.

  “Mother, you are not a Christian!”

  “No?”

  “You can’t be.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because people like us are not Christians.”

  “What do you mean? People of senatorial family, of ancient pedigree?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Oh, I think you might be surprised, my dear. The names I could name! But in this time of persecution it is not right for any Christian to name another. We do not make martyrs of one another. Nor do we choose martyrdom for ourselves. That would be selfish and presumptuous. The happy fate of martyrdom comes to the blessed only when the holy spirit decides the time is right. It would be vanity to choose martyrdom. Martyrdom chooses the martyr, so to speak. If only I may someday be so blessed—”

  “Mother, stop babbling!” Pinaria looked ready to scream.

  Titus also found it hard to listen to such crazy talk. The scene playing out was nothing new. The family had been around this gatepost countless times, repeating the same arguments. Could Clodia not see how damaging her atheism was to the whole family? Or at least what was left of the family. Not long ago the house had rung with the cries of his grandchildren. The children of Gnaeus and Pinaria, and their spouses, were all gone now, every one of them, carried off by the horrible plague …

  He was reminded of his purpose. He tried to calm Pinaria. Clodia needed no calming. His wife never lost her composure. She perpetually wore the placid, slightly dazed look one so often saw on the faces of Christians.

  “Wife, do you remember how you became a Christian?”

  “Of course. I’ve told you the story many times.”

  “It was because of the plague. Or rather, the way the Christians reacted to it, as opposed to so many others.”

  “Exactly. Suddenly, everyone was taking sick and dying all around us. What dark days those were, before I found the one true god and our savior, Jesus Christ! I, too, feared the plague, more than anything else. When my own grandchildren were dying, I shunned them—I made the slaves look after them. I was too afraid even to enter the room, even when I heard them weeping.” She had tears in her eyes, though she still smiled. “And then the slaves tending the children grew sick, and what did we do to those slaves? We threw them into the street, where the rabble pelted them with stones and drove them out of the city. Some of the sick were forced to wear blindfolds, or sacks over their heads, because people were afraid they’d catch the plague if a dying slave dared to look them in the eye. Imagine the horror and misery of such a death, to be terribly sick and then to be driven blindfolded through the streets, out of the city, to die amid gutters and weeds and heaps of trash. And all the time, I locked myself away, not wanting to see, heedless of the suffering of strangers—heedless even of my own grandchildren’s final gasping breaths.”

  Pinaria began to sob. “Make her stop, Papa! Make her shut up!”

  Titus raised a h
and to quiet his daughter, for he wanted to hear what came next.

  Clodia continued, with a beatific smile and eyes that glittered with tears. She loved to tell this story. “But then, one day when I dared to venture out with the slaves—we had to find sustenance somehow—I passed a neighbor’s house and heard singing inside. Not sorrowful singing, but a happy song, a song of pure joy! I was drawn inside, and what should I see but many beds crowded together in every room of the house, and in those beds men and women and children who were desperately ill, some of them on the very point of dying. I was horrified, and frightened, but also full of wonder, for the people in that house were tending to the ill, caring for them, giving them sips of water to comfort them and wiping their brows, not afraid to touch them, even kissing them on the forehead. What sort of place was this? What sort of people were these?”

  “Christians,” said Pinaria through gritted teeth. The word dripped with loathing.

  “Yes, Christians! They were not afraid to tend the ill and the dying. Indeed, they saw it as a duty, a duty to each other and to their savior, Jesus Christ. ‘But what if you catch the plague yourself?’ I asked. ‘Why, then we too will be taken home to Him, to a better life after this one, a life of eternal bliss, free of the burdens of our mortal bodies.’”

  “‘But do you not see how they suffer?’ I asked, for everywhere I looked was horror. Until you’ve seen it with your own eyes, you can’t imagine just how horrible are the final stages of the illness. After the bowels turn to water and fever scalds the body from the inside out, then comes the deafness, and the blindness, and then the rotted hands and feet and whole limbs turned to putrefaction—”

  “Mother, please!”

  “I know, you can barely stand to hear me speak of these things aloud. Can you imagine seeing such horror all around you, at every hour of the day? So I asked the people in that house, ‘Do you not see? Are you not afraid?’